Within the opening spherical of the 2024 Cincinnati Open tennis event, China’s Shuai Zhang suffered a defeat by the hands of Diana Shnaider, with a rating of two:0 in units (6:1, 6:4). This loss marked Shuai’s twenty second consecutive defeat on the WTA tour, setting a brand new document for the longest shedding streak in each males’s and ladies’s competitions.
This unlucky streak surpassed the earlier document held by Vincent Spadea, an American male participant and former quantity 10 within the rankings, who had confronted 21 consecutive defeats in ATP tournaments.
Shuai’s final style of victory got here on January 31, 2023, when she was higher in opposition to American Madison Brengle within the 2023 Lyon Open event. Since then, she has struggled and misplaced in each subsequent event’s first spherical. Consequently, her WTA rating has plummeted from twenty second place to 689th. Regardless of these challenges within the singles competitions, Shuai has discovered success in enjoying doubles, boasting two Grand Slam titles, and at present holding the 61st rating in doubles.
Who’s Shuai Zhang?
The 35-year-old, born in Tianjin, began enjoying tennis on the age of six when her mother and father took her to an area tennis membership. She turned skilled in 2003 and performed her first singles occasion in Mollerusa in August of that 12 months. She has achieved affordable success within the singles, reaching her highest rating of No. 22 in January 2023. Zhang has gained three WTA Tour singles titles on the Guangzhou Worldwide in 2013 and 2017 and the 2022 Lyon Open.
In doubles, she is at its finest as a two-time main champion in ladies’s doubles, having gained the 2019 Australian Open and the 2021 US Open, each alongside Samantha Stosur.
Zhang additionally completed runner-up on the 2022 Wimbledon Championships with Elise Mertens. She achieved a career-high doubles rating of No. 2 in July 2022 and has gained 13 titles on the WTA Tour, together with the 2021 Cincinnati Open with Samantha Stosur (AUS).
